Ninfomaníaca - Sexo Sem Culpa

Jonna Luoto (Mi Grönlund) is a successful executive in an advertising agency and has a perfect marriage with the workaholic constructor Niklas Luoto (Nicke Lignell). They live in a comfortable house with their two children and Jonna is very close to her sister, the artist Sanna (Saija Lentonen), who has problematic relationships with her lovers. However, Niklas does not satisfy the sex drive of Joanna that is addicted in sex and she has casual sex with strangers. When Jonna meets the sportsman born in silver spoon Aleksi (Jasper Pääkkönen), she has a love affair with the spoiled man, affecting her personal and professional lives. Meanwhile, her client and TV sex therapist Nora (Amira Khalifa) identifies her problem and offers to help Jonna to control her sex drive. But like any addicted, Jonna believes she can control her sexual impulses and refuses Nora's offer.

"Levottomat 3" is a sensual but never vulgar drama about a woman that has her life destroyed by her sex addiction. The engaging and erotic story has a good screenplay and performances of an unknown cast. The sexy and gorgeous Mi Grönlund is perfect in the role of a nymphomaniac mother and wife that does not recognize her problem and is ashamed to talk with her beloved husband about her sex drive. I bought this DVD a long time ago but the unfair IMDb User Rating had not encouraged me to watch this Finnish film. Yesterday late night I decided to watch it to help me to sleep and on the contrary, I saw "Levottomat 3" until the very last funny scene in the credits. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Ninfomaníaca – Sexo Sem Culpa" ("Ninphomaniac – Sex without Guilty")

I disagree with the previous reviewer's comments on the script. The film is well written; the dialogue simple, real and without ostentatiousness. It's a personal drama and the script reflects that. It's not the kind of film to throw in twists for the sake of plot interest. It's an exploration of one woman's descent into her addiction: slowly, gradually, and with full knowledge of where she's headed, we watch her life disintegrate. That's what happens with addiction. The low-key nature of this film is what makes it so good. The direction is stylish yet simple, and complements the script very well. How much worse to over-dramatise what is already highly dramatic subject matter?

Kieslowski's colour trilogy must had been some sort of an inspiration to all the unattached trilogies we're having these days. Producer Markus Selin is one of the most influential producers in the Finnish film scene and is often credited as the man who brought Finnish commercial cinema back after some 40 years of absence in late 1990's.

The so called Restless-trilogy was meant to be a series of films directed by young directors about the state of the young adults in Finland. A great subject and a great idea although one could see the commercial aspects of this money-making early 30's demographics shine through.

The first part of the trilogy "Levottomat" (Restless, 1999)can be seen as a huge success for Finnish cinema being controversial, sexy and very much tapped into the moment in time as well as the subject. The second part "Minä ja Morrison" (Me and Morrison, 2001) was slightly dimmer success as for some reason it wasn't marketed as the second part. The film and acting were good, though the story ended a little suddenly and the deeper aspects of modern young adulthood were more absent than in "Levottomat".

The third part i.e. "Levottomat 3" (Restless 3, 2004) was a complete let-down of the trilogy. Huge skin-deep marketing, poor acting, poor dialogue, poor story and safe and "pop" choices in casting made sure that the audience felt sick about the whole trilogy. It is told that screenwriters resigned throughout the project and in the end it was just pure bad luck that the last one's name ended up in the credits. Whereas the earlier parts got their young directors to a beginning of a promising career, this one must had been the worst call-card for the poor director who obviously didn't know what sort of a money-making machinery she was getting into.

Sure I should write something about the film itself. Well, dialogue in "Oxford Finnish" is the first thing to take you of the mood of getting into the story. The story itself about sex-addicted young mother getting de-railed for her ambitions has a certain contemporary touch to it but the solid numb acting between her and his husband and her and the new lover of doom leaves everyone stone cold. The plot shows how things get from bad to worse and then a shimmering happyish ending.

I think the only positive thing in this film was to tie it to the contemporary Helsinki scenery at the time when the nations biggest building project (Kamppi commercial and traffic centre) was being built right in the middle of the city. Well, that's about it.

First of all I liked the first Levottomat because the main character is a bit like me, a cynical person, and overall the acting and the plot was okay. Minä ja Morrison(Levottomat 2) didn't annoy me but it didn't have any affect on me but this movie had: it just plain simply is the worst film I have ever seen.

The characters don't have any depth and the acting is just so bad. I've seen most of the actors in other films and they didn't perform bad then. Was the director(Minna Virtanen) just so bad that she didn't have any control of the actors? I think so.

1/10

Right, first I have to say that I have never before commented a movie because I haven't felt that I need to. This movie made an exception. I kind of liked the original Levottomat, as I could identify myself with the main character and I also thought the story and casting were quite good. This of course doesn't mean the sequels are equally good, not at all. Usually the sequels simply are cheap imitations and fail miserably.

Levottomat 3 proves my case only partially. The story behind all the glitter, bad directing and bad acting, feels all right at the first glance. Although, I would think the idea of female sex addict isn't yet approved by the great public (not even by all females). Whatever the case, the story is semi decent.

The same can't be said about casting, choice of actors and directing. I wouldn't like to be disrespectful against miss Grönlund or miss Virtanen, but one of them or both together ruined this movie. The "sex doctor/psychologist" performs equally bad and is extremely unbelievable. Show me a psychologist who would judge someone after just few words said in a emotional storm (or as in the case of this movie, a slightly darker cloud, not a storm)? The actors equal to products of human product replacement. Simply horrible and unbelievable.

As I said in the beginning, the story is quite all right. The only flaw is that the movie is simply unbelievable. I entertain myself with the idea of this being directed and acted by someone else. I smiled slightly for the thought of Kati Outinen being "Jonna" and Sakari Kuosmanen being "Niklas". I would definitely buy the whole thing bit easier. I wish it was set in a bit less glamorous atmosphere in the first place. Come on, an architect and a big ad guru? Nobody believes that. How about clerk and accountant? Car repairman and housewife? Waitress and construction worker? Anyway, one of the worst ones I have seen: 4/10